


Bare Masks

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Light Angst, Out of Character, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 11:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13076037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: Prompt: LuciusxAndromeda, The Kiss - HayezMassive OOC. Seriously.





	Bare Masks

It had been too long since he had last felt like a man.

In that moment he felt like a pale shadow, able to go through other human beings without being even noticed.

War had drained him. And a lot of times he had asked himself why had he thrown himself into that mad project of death.

 _Because you are a coward, Lucius_ was used to tell him a voice from inside, which he couldn’t really place. Before he had managed to simply ignore it, while now he wondered if it hadn’t always been right about everything, when it told him that he was nothing but a slave, ignoble, unworthy of being called a human being.

Every night he was forced to look into Narcissa and Draco’s eyes, knowing that they weren’t gonna respect him as a man anymore.

Too many mistakes made, too much dignity thrown to the wind: those were his fault.

He kept living showing a derisive face to the world, forged in despise, but he knew all too well his credibility hanged on a thinner and thinner thread.

He spent his days waiting the thread to break, that would’ve fallen also the last stage keeping alive his hope to be able to keep pretending. Pretending to be still alive, pretending to be a man, pretending to be powerful.

Or, simply, pretending to be happy.

Happiness was a concept that, during the years spent alongside the Dark Lord, he had learnt to disown. It didn’t bring nothing, it just showed human weaknesses.

 

That night he was sitting in the living room, drinking Fire Whiskey, without doing anything else as usual. By now, there were many nights he spent with his mind a thousand miles from there.

There was a knock on the door. He didn’t move, waiting for someone else to answer it, which didn’t happen.

With a groan, he remembered Draco and Narcissa had went to dinner at the Zabini, which he had refused. He didn’t feel like exposing himself to public mockery.

He stood tiredly from the sofa and went to the door. In front of him, with a certain surprise, he saw Andromeda. He kept quiet, exactly like her, for a few second. He couldn’t understand at all what she was doing there. From what he knew, she and her sister hadn’t talked in years, they had reduced to a minimum their contact since Andromeda had left home to marry that filthy Mudblood. After that day they had barely seen each other, never on purpose, explaining why he was so unfamiliar with her.

But he supposed that Andromeda, like the rest of the Wizarding World, knew exactly what he had done. Or, at least, he got that from the gaze of despise on her face.

“Good evening, Lucius.” she said, her tone neutral. It took him a while to answer, still shocked by her presence there.

“Good evening, Andromeda.” he murmured in the end, with a feeble voice. He looked at her.

She reminded him of Bellatrix, terribly. She had the same features, the same hair, the same build, even though she had had a daughter.

She had just one thing different. The eyes.

Same colour, same shape, but her missed the madness that marked Bella’s. He would’ve said they expressed a sort of... resignation, surrender.

“Is my sister here?” she asked, while he was still thinking. He got back to himself, and shook his head.

“She’s at some friend’s house, with Draco.” he looked at the watch. “She shouldn’t be long.” he hesitated, but he couldn’t really tell why. That woman’s gaze was making him uncomfortable, almost embarrassed.

Lucius thought he must’ve imagined it, and that the sensation was merely to be ascribed to her similarity with Bellatrix. He moved from the doorway, welcoming her in.

They sat in the living room, quiet, neither of them knew how to start talking, nor really wanted to.

Lucius raised an eyebrow looking at his sister-in-law, who was staring into space. He smiled slightly thinking that must have been the same look on face.

War, in the end, took from the winners as it did the losers.

But thinking that Andromeda had lost the husband, the daughter and the son-in-law, he believed that calling her a winner was ventured.

“You looked tired.” she said, unexpectedly. Lucius thought to have caught a note of sarcasm in her voice, and tried to assume a proud pose, even though he had forgotten how to do so.

“I could say the same thing about you.” he answered, sharp. He saw her frown, and almost sighed. His uneasiness grew, and he didn’t really want to do anything to feed it. But he couldn’t help that reply.

He didn’t like to hear about his look, no matter how aware of it he was. And as much as he knew Andromeda understood ‘tired’ wasn’t the best word choice.

“Of course. I’m really tired. I’ve got too many things to do at home.” she replied, proud and absolutely sarcastic. Lucius felt almost like blushing. In the end he sighed, closing his eyes for a brief moment.

“Yes, well... I’m sorry for...” the woman didn’t let him finish.

“Lucius Malfoy sorry? Do they teach pity at Death Eater’s school?” she hissed. The man felt hurt almost physically by those words. “I don’t need your pity.” she continued, with contempt.  

“I know nobody needs my pity. And after all it’s not a craft I’m a master of.” he admitted, shameless. She shook her head.

“Maybe it is I who should feel pity for you.” she held forth, standing up all of a sudden and going toward the door. When Lucius hear her slamming it, it was liked he regained consciousness. He stood up and followed her.

The woman had almost reached the end of the walkway of Malfoy Manor. Her stride was decided, and Lucius almost smiled for how she seemed so much... woman, not like Bellatrix was nor, he had to admit that, was Narcissa.

“Stop.” he murmured, so low that she barely heard him. She stopped and turned around, in a time that seemed infinite to the man. When he could see her face, he instinctively backed off.

There was rage in her, there was fury... and there was something he couldn’t define as other than immense melancholy.

He sighed and got closer, cautious, as she was an animal he wasn’t supposed to scare off.

“Andromeda, I...” he said, but then shut up, sighing again. She showed her irritation on her face.

“No, Malfoy. It’s not about you. I lost my daughter, I lost my husband. I don’t have a family anymore. You don’t know what it means, you still have Narcissa and Draco. Do you know why I came here tonight? Because my sister is the only family I have left aside from my grandson. But I can’t stand to see you, with that afflicted look, as if you were the most unfortunate man in the world. You don’t have your dignity anymore, if you ever did.” she stopped to take a deep breath. “But I’d give my dignity away, my soul even, to get back what has been torn away from me. It was brutal, you couldn’t even imagine it. So don’t look at me that way, Lucius. Because you have no right to bear that look in your eyes, as if you had been annihilated” she finished.

Lucius kept staring at her, it seemed to him an eternity had passed. Then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, he covered the distance between the two of them, took her face in his hands and kissed her. He kissed her as if it was the first time he kissed a woman, as if she was the buoy that could keep him afloat.

He felt the fire of life running through his veins, the skin under his hands seemed to burn. He was a part of her in that moment, part of that pain, part of that rage that she was putting into that kiss stolen to the night.

When they split Lucius saw her blushing, and wondered what she was thinking about, even though he didn’t have a clear perception of his own thoughts.

He only knew that, for once, he had let his instinct prevail, that he was satisfied with himself. He could feel what he had considered turned off on again, he felt a magic far more powerful than anything he had experimented up until now.

It was her who broke that silence, that for once didn’t bear any discomfort.

“I’ve got to go, Lucius.” she murmured. The man couldn’t understand whether it was guilt or disgust that in her voice. He only knew that he would’ve really loved to stop her, he would’ve wanted for her to stay, but that it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do.

There was still a life to be lived and he knew that, on that very same moment, a woman he barely knew, a woman devastated and destroyed, had just given him something unique.

Maybe a hope, maybe a flash of light in the middle of the darkness he was stuck in, he didn’t know yet.

But he knew it was time to take down the masks he had forced on himself, to stop playing at being the man, and start living as a human being.

He wasn’t sure he remembered how to do it, but now it felt it was a possibility.

A possibility given to him by a kiss, a kiss so ephemeral he couldn’t even classify as real.

But a kiss it was, it was the essence of pain, and it had passed.

Now he had to go on.


End file.
